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Maude Barlow to Address UN General Assembly

UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK, April 21 /CNW Telbec/ - Council of Canadians
chair Maude Barlow will make her first address to the United Nations General
Assembly on the morning of April 22 to support the Bolivian call for an annual
"International Mother Earth Day" celebration. Her speech will be a call to
action to implement the human right to water. According to Barlow, this means
the world will have to abandon the "hard path" of large-scale technology -
dams, diversion and desalination - in favour of the "soft path" of
conservation, rainwater and storm water harvesting, recycling, alternative
energy use, municipal infrastructure investment and local, sustainable food
production.
Barlow's speech comes at a time when the quest for a formal right to
water instrument is gathering strength both at the UN and within countries.
She is hopeful that it is only a matter of time before the "blue covenant" she
will call for in her speech will be a reality.
"The problem is that we humans have seen the Earth and its water
resources as something that exists for our benefit and economic advancement
rather than as a living ecological system that needs to be safeguarded if it
is to survive," Barlow will say in her remarks. "The human water footprint
surpasses all others and endangers life on Earth itself."
Barlow, who was appointed last year as Senior Advisor on Water to the
President of the UN General Assembly, will also participate in an afternoon
program with Bolivian President Evo Morales, Brazilian writer-theologian
Leonardo Boff, and UN President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann. Barlow will also be
briefing more than 35 countries and meeting with key UN agencies on this visit
as part of her ongoing commitment to the human right to water.
"Water must be seen as a commons that belongs to the Earth and all
species alike. It must be declared a public trust that belongs to the people,
the ecosystem and the future and preserved for all time and practice in law.
Clean water must be delivered as a public service, not a profitable
commodity," Barlow is to say. "We need to assert once and for all that access
to clean, affordable water is a fundamental human right that must be codified
in nation-state law and as a full covenant at the United Nations."
"Watersheds must be protected from plunder and we must revitalize wounded
water systems with widespread watershed restoration programs. Simply put, we
must leave enough water in aquifers, rivers and lakes for their ecological
health. This must be the priority: the precautionary principle of ecosystem
protection must take precedence over commercial demands on these waters,"
Barlow will urge.

For further information:

For further information: or to arrange an interview: Dylan Penner, (613)
795-8685; Denise Hughes, (917) 549-2621